


Catering

by riverbed



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015), The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Illya's food thing is my favorite character weakness, M/M, Sickfic, in case we all didn't already know, in sickness and in health, napoleon mothering and fussing over Illya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:50:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5480492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverbed/pseuds/riverbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya should be used to being taken care of by now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catering

**Author's Note:**

> Lazy, fluffy, vanilla Napollya because I should have been working on my actual deadline work but then I... didn't. Whoops.
> 
> This is mostly an experiment in being flowery, actually - I wanted to test my brevity, make sure I can still make English pretty. Enjoy.

Illya lies atop the covers, long legs splayed so that one knee faces outward while the other is bent in the air where his foot underneath it is planted in the bedclothes. Napoleon steps close, hearing his breathing - steady, slow - as he approaches the bed. He places the back of his hand gently against Illya’s temple, a gesture his mother used to use on him. He remembers some truly horrifying fever dreams from the time he’d gotten chicken pox as a teenager, and his mother had held him through them, had been there when he woke up and had needed to cry to release the terror. He wants to do that for Illya, because he knows he must have some seriously fucked up nightmare fodder bouncing around in that head of his. Illya sick is docile, nearly passing for domesticated - the past couple of days have been filled with significantly less brooding than usual, and Napoleon thinks he could certainly get used to it, that pliancy, that willingness on his part to accept - God forbid - Napoleon’s help.

“Cowboy." Illya hasn’t moved, but his eyes are now open. “Are you planning on moving your hand? It’s heavy.” Illya’s tone is as playful as Napoleon supposes it could possibly be through the rough scratch layered on top of his voice, and his lips curl in a rare, sleepy smile; Napoleon is overcome with affection. He grins down at him. “Hey. You’re awake.”

“Clearly,” Illya mock-grumbles. “Why, I am not sure.”

“You sensed that I missed you.”

“I _sensed_ your freezing cold hand on my very warm face.” Illya turns away, ducks out from under Napoleon’s touch and brings his own hand to the same spot, pulling the skin of his cheek downward, contorting his face. “Speaking of which, how’s my fever, Doctor Solo?”

His cheeks are flushed practically scarlet. Solo does not know how he keeps himself from complaining when he is this ill. He himself is not so strong. “Not great. I brought you some chicken soup and some juice.”

Illya pivots his head back to shoot him a glare. “Excellent. Now I am reduced to suffering the bland menu that is typical of American old wive’s tales. Why don’t you just put me out of my misery?”

“Misery is a strong word, isn’t it?” Napoleon says, knowingly. “And some of those old wives are more clever than you may assume.” He places the bowl and glass he brought with him on the side table and settles on the bed, curling himself against Illya, fitting the cant of his hips against the blond’s own. Illya’s legs remain stationary, but he tilts his core a bit to allow himself to turn toward Napoleon, pressing his pajama-clad chest against Napoleon’s cashmere sweater as much as is comfortable in his sickly, private state of sauna.

“What time is it?” Illya lobs, casually, and Napoleon is almost tricked into answering him.

“Never you mind. I don’t need you focusing on wasted time.” The blinds have been shut for two solid days. If this were a noir, Illya would assume Napoleon had been trying to invoke Stockholm Syndrome. “It’s not too late, anyway. I just got Wa Jeal to deliver for myself a bit ago.”

It’s one of Illya’s top five Chinese places in the city, and mention of it makes his mouth water immediately. He thinks of spicy sauced chicken pillowed on a bed of carb-laden fried rice, and, somewhat more distantly than that, the gesture of Napoleon ordering in for himself and cooking for him.

“I’m jealous. Not that I’d be able to taste anything at this point anyway,” Illya admits, sniffling more for dramatic effect than to relieve his sinuses. He plays absently with the dark curls at the crown of Napoleon’s head. “I can’t believe I’m big spoon even when I’m sick.”

Napoleon grins ear to ear, such that Illya can see from behind him the way his face scrunches up. His eyes are closed - he looks content, at peace. Illya would stay sick forever to be able to observe him like this more often.

He tilts his head back into Illya’s palm. “You’re comfortable.”

“Alas, that’s true,” Illya says, faux-considering. “I’m also extremely warm as of late.”

Napoleon sighs happily, wriggles his hips; ostensibly ‘getting comfortable,’ completely transparent. “You are,” he confirms, as Illya groans, frustrated, and buries his hot face in the crook of Napoleon’s neck and shoulder. He kisses the skin there, finding it strangely cool and utterly fascinating. He has officially had enough of dreaming about this, not feeling quite up to it since he first fell ill. His mind wanders to the time Napoleon had caught cold on vacation in the Swiss Alps and Illya had chastely kissed him goodnight in the evenings and left the room, a shameless tease, and he realises that all the times he’s happened to wake up to find Napoleon in the midst of lifting his shirt over the past 48 hours have not been coincidental after all.

He supposes he deserves it, for all his playing coy.

He comes up to pepper light kisses along Napoleon’s jawline from behind and is rewarded by a purr, a wanton and sudden shift of his hips that presses Solo’s ass against his own groin. Illya stifles a groan, threading his fingers back through his partner’s hair and tugging hard back toward his own shoulder, Napoleon going along easily to tip his head back against Illya’s body, opening the expanse of his throat. He nibbles the spot of thin skin just behind Napoleon’s ear, feeling against his lips the vibration of the hum that flows through his throat.

Napoleon breaks himself out of the hold, throwing a leg over to straddle Illya, his elbows framing his sides and their bodies pressed together at the groin. He grins as he rotates his hips, watches Illya’s lips part. “Soup’s getting cold,” he chides as he slides down Illya’s body, gentling his hands along his abdomen under his tee shirt. He smirks, indecently, when he’s eye-level with his crotch. “But you seem to want to medicate differently.”

Napoleon slips the flat of his fingers under the waistband of Illya’s flannel pants, and gives Illya everything his body begs for, tightness pooling under his skin wherever Napoleon decides to lave kisses. Illya whimpers and writhes, feels, strangely, deconstructed, open and vulnerable and like he could reach up, curl easily out of himself and touch something bigger than the both of them, something drastic and dark and outrageous, like the sky is huge and vast and yet easily contained, held against his chest like a pen in a shirt pocket. It stabs into him and swells inside him and all at once it’s too much, his nerves sparking and bursting and he arches and his hips rise and Napoleon locks eyes with him, which does not help the wave ease - his vision goes blurry and he falls further, deeper, in the comedown.

Napoleon’s fingertips ghost against his thigh and he shudders. Everything feels somewhat fluid, like the room is floating in the half-light, or like maybe he is floating in the center of it, reality ebbing and flowing in and out of being.

He clears his throat and remembers why he hasn’t done that in a few days. Napoleon does not miss the slight wince, and even as Illya swipes somewhat sluggishly at his zip, he dodges away, smiling so genuinely that Illya finds himself annoyed with it. “You are in absolutely no condition,” he condescends, and Illya is now livid, under the exhaustion; Napoleon should know better, he thinks. Napoleon should not be so stupid as to challenge him.

The impulse to rest overtakes him, though, and for once, he is forced to admit he had been wrong, silent as the admission may be - Napoleon pulls his head against his chest, and runs his hand through his straw-colored hair, damp with sweat, and Illya lets the brushed wool scratch the wrong way against the stubble on his cheek, lets Napoleon brush his fingers lazily through the shorter hair at his nape.

“You’re going to have to reheat that soup,” he mumbles into his lover’s chest, and it jumps against him as Napoleon laughs, deep and low in his diaphragm.

“Don’t worry about it, Darling,” Napoleon tells him. He hates it when Napoleon calls him “Darling.” It’s too kind, too intimate; it makes him feel small, childlike, but also safe in helplessness, and that’s what scares him - safety like an illusion, wrapped in someone’s arms, as protective as his father’s. He has been through enough to know by now that safety is nothing more than a disguise, a shiny, soft veneer wrapped around the sharp, ugly misery the world really is.

But it’s easy enough to trust Napoleon when he lies and tells him it’s all right, all silver tongue and perfect smile, and sometimes Illya drifts dangerously into the realm of believing him.

He places his head back against Napoleon’s shoulder and lets the warm lull of sleep tempt him, but he keeps his eyes open. He enjoys, for a while, the fact that real rest can come without slumber, thinking fondly of how much Chinese takeout he will devour once he feels like himself again.


End file.
